The world didn’t stop when you died

But I did

Photo by Kristina Tripkovic on Unsplash

Grief is strange. When you lose someone it feels like the entire world should stop moving. After all, a seismic shift has just occurred in your life and you need to steady yourself. But everything keeps going. As one member of my online community put it, "I remember driving to the hospital the day my dad died and wanting to scream at a lady riding her bike. Where was she going?! The world had ended." The humming traffic, the grocery store checkout line, the email inbox -- it can feel like a slap in the face. 

For many people, grief takes on a cinematic surreality. It’s a feeling akin to standing still in the middle of a busy city street, watching the blur of motion pass by while you remain frozen in your pain. The juxtaposition of personal devastation against the unrelenting march of life is jarring.

"I remember driving to the hospital the day my dad died and wanting to scream at a lady riding her bike. Where was she going?! The world had ended."

In the immediate aftermath of a death, there’s often a brief window where the world does seem to pause—at least within the confines of your closest circles. People call and send messages. They bring food. There’s an acknowledgment of your pain and a moment of communal grief. But as the days turn into weeks and the weeks into months, the people stop checking in. The meals taper, the phone calls stop, and life resumes for everyone else. Except for you.

You, who are still waking up to a reality that feels fundamentally altered. You, who are still bracing against the quiet of a house that used to be filled with someone’s voice. You, who are still expecting, against all logic, for your loved one to walk through the door. The world outside doesn't accommodate this internal rupture; it simply moves forward, indifferent to your suffering.

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

Grief bends time. Some days, it feels like years have passed since they left. Other times, it feels like you were just speaking to them yesterday. Anniversaries hit in strange ways—sometimes with the force of a freight train, other times with a dull ache.

For many, these anniversaries exist in an isolating limbo. The world sees July 20th as just another day but for you it marks something entirely different. It’s the day the earth shifted beneath you and everything changed. We keep these dates in back of our mind, dreading them as they approach. The anniversary of your father’s death, the birthday of a child who never made it to adulthood, the date of that last hospital visit—all of these moments are held sacred only by those who have lived them. The rest of the world keeps moving.

The world outside doesn't accommodate this internal rupture; it simply moves forward, indifferent to your suffering.

One of the strangest aspects of grief is how normalcy and tragedy exist side by side. You might be making coffee in the morning when suddenly the weight of absence washes over you. You might be folding laundry and remember that you used to fold their clothes too. It’s as if grief inserts itself into the mundane, forcing you to reconcile the extraordinary pain of loss with the ordinariness of life. And of course, you have to function within the world. There are bills to pay, jobs to do, and responsibilities to uphold. But there’s something profoundly absurd about this forced participation in a world that no longer makes sense.

And then, there are moments that remind you that everyone carries their own grief. I once found myself in a mild collision while dropping my kids off at school. Later that day, the woman who had been driving the other car reached out and said “I’m sorry if I seemed rude this morning - my father died last night.” In that moment I realized something that has stayed with me: you kind of have to assume that everybody is grieving, all the time.

There’s something profoundly absurd about this forced participation in a world that no longer makes sense.

For all its cruelty, time also offers something else: continuity in its own way. Life doesn't stop for grief, but it also doesn't stop for joy. Babies are born. Love finds you again. New friendships emerge. And perhaps most strikingly, you find yourself carrying pieces of the past into the present. You might sing the same lullaby to your child that your father once sang to you. You might tell a story they used to tell, hearing echoes of their voice in your own.

The world may not have stopped when they died, but neither did your capacity for love. And that is what grief ultimately reveals—not just loss, but love. Love that transcends time, love that outlives bodies, love that stitches itself into the fabric of who we become.